Student Computing Survey 2010-2011: Graduate Results

Check out these selected results of the annual Student Computing Survey for grad students, conducted through the month of April 2011. Click here for Undergraduate survey results or visit the survey result archives.

• Demographics
• About Your Personal Computing
• About Your Resident Computer Consultants (RCC)
• Residence Computing Spaces
• Public Computing Spaces
• Computing in Your Courses

Demographics

This year, 1011 grad students responded to the survey, with more men responding to the survey (62%) than women.

In addition to a small number of students in the MFA and other degree programs, respondents were comprised of:

• 56% PhD/EdD students
• 31% Masters
• 4% MBA
• 8% JD
• 4% MD

49% were in the School of Engineering, 23% in Humanities and Sciences, 10% in Medicine, 5% in Business, 9% in Law, 4% in Education, and 3% in Earth Sciences.

About Your Personal Computing

We asked students about their device ownership and usage patterns. Of those who responded to the survey:

• Almost 100% have their own computer
• At least 31% have 2 or more computers (not including other computing devices, such as smartphones)
• 83% have a laptop computer
• 55% have a smartphone (e.g. iPhone, Blackberry, etc)
• 13% have a tablet computer (e.g. iPad)
• 50% have their own printer
• 52% have an iPod or other media player (not including smartphones, e.g. iPhone)
• 19% have a Game console (XBox, PlayStation, etc.)

In terms of platform:

• 63% have a Windows PC desktop or laptop
• 39% have a Mac desktop or laptop
• 16% have a Unix or Linux computer

What personal desktop or laptop computer(s) do you have?

Which of these following devices do you have?

How old are your computing devices?

Most students say they use their computers between four to eight hours a day, with 23% four to six hours a day, 30% six to eight hours a day, and 34% more than 8 hours a day.

Students were also asked about their email and scheduler use: 72% of students said they used both the general Stanford email service (@stanford.edu) and Gmail accounts regularly. 9% of students use the Stanford Calendar service (Zimbra) and 56% use Google Calendar. 22% continue to use paper organizers.

Off-Campus Students

A significant portion of graduate students live off campus and this year. 5% of graduate student respondents said they lived off campus this year, and of those, the most popular way of getting computer help were:

1. Friends of family (63%)
2. Non-Stanford websites (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) (48%)
3. IT Services website (22%)
4. Academic department tech support (15%)
5. Stanford Campus Help Desk (5-HELP or HelpSU) (13%)

To use their iPhone, computer, etc. while on campus, most off-campus students used the Stanford Network Self-Registration service (86%) or Academic department tech support (20%). Others relied on the Stanford Campus Help Desk (5-HELP or HelpSU) (7%) or the Residential Computing registration system (typically students assigned to Oak Creek) (7%).

Multilingual Computing

This year the survey included questions about multilingual computing practices. Among graduate students, 48% reported using at least one language other than English for computing. Of these, 19% reported using two or more non-English languages on their computing devices with the maximum being five. Grad students specified computing in 40 different languages with the most common being Chinese, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.

Of the grad students who use more than one language on their computing devices, at least 70% use their devices for both reading and writing in a non-English language. At least 55% also use computing devices for audio and video conferencing in a language other than English.

What non-English language(s) you have used most on a computer or handheld device in the past year?

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About Your Residential Computing Consultants (RCC)

Resident Computer Consultants (RCCs) are students who live in each residence and serve on house staffs as local network managers by supporting residential network connections, educators by running residential programs on computing and working with students in general, consultants by helping residents with computer problems, cluster technicians by helping to take care of the residence clusters, and more. They are managed by the RCC Manager (and the Resident Fellow(s) where applicable) and receive support and training from the StuComp central staff. RCCs are the first line of support for residential students and are an integral part of residential life. For more information about RCCs, click here.

38% of students living on campus said they have asked their RCC for computer related help or advice, and of those students, 38% of them asked for help one to five times this past year (the survey was conducted through the month of April 2011). The majority of questions were related to the wireless network (68%). Other popular kinds of questions included those related to the wired network (31%) and the cluster printer (5%).

What kinds of questions have you directed to your RCC this year?

On average, 80% of requests were resolved within two days with 60% of those requests being resolved within 24 hours. Of course, in some cases it takes a longer time to resolve issues. In those cases, 62% of students responded that students felt that the RCC's response time was reasonable.

31% of students rated their RCC's knowledge as excellent or good and 40% rated their RCC's availability to help as always or usually available.

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Residence Computing Spaces

Student Computing, a department of Academic Computing, supports a computer cluster in every residence, roughly 360 public computers in 80 locations.

61% of students said it was important or very important to have study space within or near their house equipped with technology such as computers, printers, and shared displays for laptops.

48% of students said they have used a residence computing space (computer cluster) this year for any purpose (computer use, printing, study, etc.). Of those students, most students said they either used it regularly (at least once a month) (47%) or rarely (once or twice a quarter) (53%).

The top five most significant reasons for using the residence clusters are:

1. Printing (75%)
2. Availability of specialized software (Matlab, Mathematica, Photoshop, etc.) (54%)
3. Study space away from room (49%)
4. Availability of group/partner work space (45%)
5. Multimedia production (scanning, video editing, etc.) (45%)

Regarding the reliability of the printers in residence computing spaces, 86% of students say that the printer is always or usually stocked with paper and 90% say that the printer always or usually has sufficient toner.

How important is it to have a study space WITHIN OR NEAR YOUR RESIDENCE equipped with technology such as computers, printers, and shared displays for laptops (as opposed to regionally, such as the other side of EV, or centrally, e.g. in Meyer or Tresidder)?

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Public Computing Spaces

Academic Computing Services, Student Computing's parent organization, also provides central public computer clusters, equipment for checkout (e.g., laptop, video camera) and study space in Meyer Library, Green Library, other branch libraries, Tresidder LAIR, Old Union, and the community centers. Consulting support is also provided by Student Computing at the Meyer Tech Desk. 58% of students who answered the survey say they have used one of these spaces this year.

Students were asked how often they used specific public computing or study locations. Students said they used the following spaces regularly (at least once a month) or often (more than once a week), in order:

1. Any library other than Meyer or Green (37% of cluster users)
2. Meyer Lobby (1st floor) (29%)
3. Green Library (other study or computer spaces) (29%)
4. Meyer 2nd floor study/computing space (22%)
5. Meyer 24-hour Study Room (1st floor) (19%)

The most significant reasons students used public computing or study spaces in Meyer, Tresidder Computer Center, or Green Library are, in order:

1. Study space away from residence (62% of cluster users)
2. General printing (61%)
3. Availability of group/partner work space (47%)
4. Availability of specialized software (Matlab, Mathematica, Photoshop, etc.) (47%)
5. Availability of general software (Web, email, Word) (36%)

The second floor of Meyer also houses the Multimedia Studio. Students who use the space use it for a variety of multimedia purposes, such as image scanning (52% of Multimedia Studio users), text document scanning (38%), digital video editing (32%), and image editing (23%).

For what activities do you primarily use the Multimedia Studio in Meyer?

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Computing in Your Courses

Students were asked about their use of the online and software tools for learning within and outside of their classes.

CourseWork by far, was the most widely used CMS at Stanford during 2010-2011. Blackboard, CCNet, CourseWare were used by specific departments (School of Education, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science respectively) so it was expected that their usage would be low relative to CourseWork.

Which course / learning management system(s) have your courses used this academic year?

Students were asked to rate their satisfaction level with CourseWork. Overall, 72% were satisfied or very satisfied. 20% were neutral. 8% were dissatisfed and 1% indicated they were very dissatisfied.

Students were presented with a list of possible improvements in CourseWork, from which they could select up to three choices. The options were a mix of desired improvements as specified in the last CourseWork survey (conducted in 2009) that have not been addressed, known usability issues that have not been addressed, and new capabilities not available in CourseWork but available within the Sakai project that were considered potentially of interest/value to students. Students were also given an “Other” option to specify wishlist item(s) not available as a pre-identified item. The top 5 most desired improvements included:

1. Ability to view important dates (project/assignment deadlines, exam dates) for all of your courses within a single calendar (59% of CourseWork users)
2. Easier way to upload/download multiple files/folders in Materials and Drop Box (39%)
3. A better way to organize and name course sites (34%)
4. Ability to view class lectures through CourseWork (33%)
5. Ability to receive real-time course announcements and updates on your mobile phone (24%)

We asked students about their experience with the CourseWork site for mobile devices. The top five features undergrads indicated they would often or sometimes use on the mobile Coursework site included:

1. View course announcements (71% of CourseWork users)
2. View assignments (70%)
3. View the course syllabus (66%)
4. Find course location (61%)
5. Access grades (59%)

OUTSIDE OF face-to-face meetings of your classes at Stanford, rank each tool's/method's effectiveness in facilitating learning. If you did not use a tool/method, please select N/A. (An example for "Learning Management System" would be using CourseWork to conduct peer review of assignments.)

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This concludes the selected results of the annual Student Computing Survey for grad students, conducted through the month of April 2011. Click here for Undergraduate survey results or visit the survey result archives.